Aftermath
by Demented Inu
Summary: Harry's secrets, Ron's instability, and Draco's hunger for clarity. Includes Harry/Draco, Harry/Ron, and Ron/Draco.


During the entirety of our fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry seemed different. There was something he wasn't telling us, and it wasn't just about You-Know-Who. Hermione didn't seem to see it, kept telling me I was just being paranoid, but he was gone an awful lot. She didn't see when he disappeared from the boys' dormitories late at nights, thinking nobody saw him. She didn't seem to notice when he kept saying he was skipping meals to go to the library, but not getting any more work done than he'd been before.

I always noticed the things that Hermione didn't. I'd wonder, but never asked, and I'd watch him leave us alone, watch his robes twirl behind him, until he had turned a corner or was too far out of sight. Hermione seemed not to notice anything at all except her homework, mainly because exams were coming up soon. She'd only sit at the desk and chew on her quill in thought while Harry would disappear once again.

I wasn't terribly angry with him, not really, but I did wonder why he didn't bother telling me, of all people, where he was going.

And then there was the fact that I was deeply, desperately in love with him.

He was so incredibly oblivious when it came to me, and he always apologized when I accidentally-purposely bumped into him in the halls, when I'd brush his hand picking something off the floor, when I'd quickly run a hand up his thigh while I got up. Because I wanted him, so badly, wanted to hug him and run my hands through his hair, snog him senseless and press him up against the nearest wall, grinding into him until I'm dizzy with lust.

I knew that he'd never think of us like that. I knew that the thought of us, legs intertwined and faces slicked with sweat, must've really bothered him. I understood that there would never be anything of the sort between us, that we'd never have that intimacy with one another. Maybe that's why I'd been dancing around Hermione all those years, because that's what it should've been: the sidekick and the brainy one, falling in love and growing old together.

It never worked out that way. Obviously.

Why can't he see? Why can't he notice?

Where was he going?

Finally he told us where he was vanishing; he had extra lessons with Snape. Confirmed by Dumbledore, but it still doesn't explain the late nights. I still had my suspicions.

One night, watching him sneak back into the dormitory, long past the time he was supposed to be in, I couldn't stand it any more. I confronted him, he refused to tell me anything other than the lie about extra courses, and our whispered conversation was harsh, anger hiding the bitterness in my words. Eventually I did give up and go to bed, still cranky with him over the issue.

If Hermione noticed our distance then, she said nothing.

I know it was wrong of me, but I couldn't help it. The next time I saw Harry sneaking out, he left his cloak behind, and in all of thirty seconds I had found it in his bags.

I followed on well-trained silent feet, easy from all the times we used to slip out into the dark together, so close under that invisible shield, sharing the same air. The cloak still smelled like him, and it made my breath catch when I swung it around my shoulders.

The memories were nearly unbearable as I trailed him through the castle. He slipped so well from shadow to shadow, nearly silent, and better than I had ever seen him at staying hidden. Only eyes watching his every move, knowing where to look, would see him. Like mine. It made me long for the old days, getting into trouble and adventure late at night, where we weren't supposed to be. Sometimes we still did, but we were growing too tall for more than one person to fit under the Cloak anymore. Especially me. When we did find reason to go out in it, he was never this good at staying silent, never this good at being unseen even with the Cloak's assistance.

My heart hammered against my chest, and it was so loud in my own ears that I thought he must've heard it too. I followed him along the too-dark corridors, trying so hard to keep my breath silent, to be that same invisible nothingness that Harry was now. When my trainer suddenly squeaked on the newly cleaned floor, Harry only turned his head.

My heart stopped beating for a second as his eyes looked into mine, brilliantly green and almost knowing, but then he shrugged and continued on. God, he looked brilliant when he was drenched in moonlight, the pale charm light contrasting with his shockingly dark hair. I could've sworn, at that moment, that he was made of porcelain, completely flawless, completely untouched. I wanted to be the one to touch him. To leave my fingerprints on those glasses. To run my fingers over his mouth and claim him as mine alone.

And then he reached the front doors, pausing only for a moment as if to admire the carvings on them. He pushed them open with his shoulder and stepped out into the rain.

I followed him all the way across the grounds and into the forest, looming over me like Death itself. I followed him through the tangles of trees and vines, remembering a time when we had been in here just the two of us, back-to-back, facing our deaths with fear and uncertainty. But now, as I entered the clearing with him in front of me, I realized that there was somebody else in the shadows.

It wasn't hard to recognize who, as he stepped from the darkness. Faint moonlight washed over pale skin, blond hair, those arrogant, sharp features and I couldn't believe my eyes for a moment. Why Malfoy?

The look in those grey eyes said it all, everything I was dreading, and refused me the solace of the lie I had been telling myself. I had been fervently hoping that Harry was ready to fight, like the first time he met Malfoy secretly, in the dark like this. But that time, Hermione and I had been there, backing him up, and I knew he wouldn't have picked a fight without telling us, allowing us to help.

Everything became clear then, as I tried to keep my knees from buckling and backed away, watching them lock together like pieces of a puzzle clicking into place. Mouths clashing, hands fumbling in the darkness, and I couldn't bear to watch it. I clutched the invisibility cloak tighter around myself, shivering in the chill wind that cut through the wet fabric of the cloak. Finally I managed to make my body move again, and turned to run back the way I had come, no longer caring if I made noise.

The image haunted me as I made my way back to the common room, wet sneakers squeaking softly against the tile. I tried, inside the castle, to keep quieter. Better to avoid Filch, anyways. The fat lady was too sleepy to bother me much, she only raised an eyebrow and hummed when I muttered the password and slid past.

I collapsed into a heap in front of the fireplace, letting the heat wash over my chilled body as I dumped the soaking cloak off my shoulders. Shivering so hard I could hear my teeth chattering, I retched into the nearest trash bin, slowly convincing myself I had imagined the whole night. I finally made it up the stairs to my bed, collapsing with the cloak tucked beneath my pillow and falling asleep. I don't even remember when Harry finally came back from his night out.

When I woke the next morning, it was to Hermione's concerned eyes peering down through the curtain at me.

"Ron? Ron, wake up."

I groaned and buried my head under the pillow, belatedly noticing the still-damp cloak I had stuffed there last night. Hoping she didn't notice, I pulled my head back out and glared through blurry eyes at her. "What is it?" I grumbled.

She frowned at me, reaching out to touch my forehead. Her fingers were chill against my skin, and I shivered. "You're gonna miss Transfiguration, and you know how Professor McGonagall hates it when we're late." Hermione's frown deepened. "You are really warm. Are you feeling alright?"

I shivered again, and pulled the covers tighter around me. "No I'm not, it's cold. Leave me alone." I rolled away from her, her hand sliding off my face and onto the pillow behind my head. She reached around and felt my head again, and heaved a sigh.

"I'll just tell them you're sick in bed, and get you to Madam Pomfrey then, shall I?"

I muttered something under my breath, hand clutching in the cloak's still-damp fabric, wishing she would just leave me be. She finally stood and left quietly, without saying anything further. I took a moment to be sure she had gone, before sliding slowly and unwillingly out of the warm cocoon of my bedding. Fighting dizziness, I carefully returned the cloak to Harry's bag where I had found it, and crawled back into bed. Just in time, too, as I heard murmured voices and footsteps making their way up the stairs from the common room.

I rolled back over, still feeling sick and still with that image burned into my memory like a brand. Not surprisingly, Harry came through the door looking overly-rumpled with his hair sticking out in the back. I remembered a time when I had been the one to try and smooth it down for him, to try and tame it with no luck, all the time wanting so much more.

I sat up in my bed, not really terribly angry, and my stomach churned as I saw the bite mark low on his neck, a perfect arch of perfect teeth.

"Hey," he said as he walked by, only once looking to his bag.

I mumbled a reply, avoiding looking at those green eyes, that telling mark on his pale skin. I tried to sound as normal as possible, figuring that a fight this early would do nothing but get me in trouble.

It was then that Hermione showed back up to take me to Madam Pomfrey, and for once I was glad of the excuse to miss classes and avoid Harry and Malfoy both. She assisted me carefully out of bed and down the stairs, using magic to keep me stable and moving. I don't really remember anything until I woke up in the hospital wing later that day.

I was on my stomach, my face pressed against the white, crisp sheet. Hermione had gone, and it was then that I remembered classes....

But I just groaned and rolled and tried not to think about Harry and Malfoy together in that forest, mouths latched so perfectly, and it seemed like they just...clicked.

I would never click like that.

Envy gnawed at me, chewed through my thick walls of denial, because I did love him, and I wanted to be the one to click with him, to kiss him and push him up against walls and worry about my hands tumbling over one another as I undo his belt.

But that wasn't me in that forest. That wasn't me with my fingers threaded in his hair.

And I hated it.

***

Summer came. Things changed. Harry stopped being interested in Malfoy, something about his father and things that had to be done. So in the end, Harry ran to me.

I'm not sure how it happened, but he came to me, telling me about Malfoy, about everything. When I told him I already knew what had been going on, he broke down. An idle phrase, falling from his lips, was all the hope I held inside.

_"It's always your best friend or your worst enemy, the one you fall the hardest for. Sometimes, I guess it's both."_

He never outright told me he loved me, though I would whisper it in his ear when we were tangled together, and he would smile and kiss me and never really respond. Maybe he thought he didn't have to. He had, after all, made all my fondest dreams come true.

And then those shy touches--the brushing of hands, the bumping of shoulders as we walked by one another, the hand up the thigh--I could do without excuse. And he welcomed it, brushing my hand in return, rubbing my shoulders when I ached.

But somehow, it wasn't quite right. Not because he was a bloke or because he was my best friend, but because he didn't seem to want it badly enough. He didn't kiss me the way he kissed Malfoy, didn't tear off my clothes like he did Malfoy's.

We didn't...click.

And it was driving me mad.

**HARRY'S POV:**

It had started as a bad habit, like the cigarettes Dudley sneaks when he thinks his parents aren't looking.

A quick fumble in the broom closet, a release of tension for the day. It was mutual, of course, all of it.

But then things started happening. I started coming back for _more._ I didn't know what was going on until it had already happened, that night that we had both stayed in the Astronomy Tower, his arms around me.

It was never really the same after that. Things got serious. I started leaving in the middle of the day for it, grabbing him out of the hallway to go shag.

And then I fell in love with him.

But why? Why a Malfoy, of all people? Why the arrogant bastard that I had hated throughout all my years in school?

In truth, I really don't know.

Of course, if questions came up, I always had my extra Occlumency lessons with Snape as an excuse. That would explain all of my sudden disappearances, all of my half-arsed reasons for ditching my friends in the middle of lunch.

I don't think Hermione ever noticed. It didn't surprise me, what with O.W.L.s coming up. But Ron... Ron noticed it all. He'd watch me from across the table, watch me as I walked down the hall for another appointment.

When I did finally come clean about the lessons, it wasn't a huge deal. No "How could you lie to us, Harry?!" or anything like that. Just a nod and a sigh of understanding.

I guess Ron started getting sick of my leaving in the middle of the night, though, because he confronted me once while I was sneaking in from a quick shag. He grabbed my arm as I was ready to slip back into the dorm, and I turned to meet those hurt eyes.

"Where were you, mate?" he'd said in his thick Cockney accent.

"Nowhere," I'd replied lamely. "Bathroom."

"Don't lie to me, Harry." He'd let go of me now, let his hand drop sadly to his side. "You don't just get to hare off and do whatever and then expect me not to question."

"I'm telling you the truth. I needed to pee." I paused, but he didn't react. "Please?"

He sighed, looking altogether deflated, and finally turned and marched back upstairs, his too-short pajama bottoms flapping at his bare ankles.

And Malfoy and I could continue our affair with no interference.

But then there was that night, just before summer hit, when I went out into the forest and Draco told me something that changed everything.

_"We can't do this anymore. If my father found out--"_

After that, we had a falling out. We fought, we screamed until our voices went raw, and finally I had gotten fed up with him and left.

Summer came and summer went, all the while me pretending not to want. Not to need. I needed somewhere else--some_one_ else--to give my tension to.

So I went to the nearest volunteer.

Ron was more than willing to listen to me as I told him about all my Malfoy problems, as I complained and let out all the frustration that had been building up inside me.

When I told him about me and Malfoy, he looked to the ground.

"I already knew," he said quietly. "I saw you guys in the forest, once. Under the Cloak."

The opportunity hit.

_"_It's always your best friend or your worst enemy, the one you fall the hardest for. Sometimes, I guess it's both_."_

And that night, I kissed him. I was so used to Draco, to that need, but it just wasn't here this time. I went gentle with him, kissed him lightly, and then began unbuttoning his shirt one button at a time. We slept together that night, him whispering in my ear that he loved me, and making my heart sink with guilt. So I just smiled and kissed him, avoiding answering his questions.

But I could see him hurting. I could see his heart breaking every time I touched him, every time I kissed him.

And mine was breaking too.

***

When the war finally came, I was surprised to see Draco standing proud alongside Snape, on our side. That cold, arrogant expression had never been so sharp since the day Dumbledore died, and I had thought he was a lost cause. After he followed in the steps his father gave him, after Snape had made that Unbreakable Oath.... I didn't expect to see him here, least of all on my side.

Snape, too, had been a surprise, but he'd proven his loyalty to our side despite the Oath. He played Voldemort, even as we were hunting him down for revenge he was gathering intelligence to turn over to us. We wouldn't be here, alive, right now without him.

The other students still didn't trust him. Not when The Boy Who fucking Lived had told them he wasn't to be trusted, that he was the one who had killed Dumbledore. I won't ever let myself forget that I am both the reason he's alive and the reason he will never be trusted in the wizarding community again.

And I ate myself alive for it.

And now, on the battlefield with Draco and Neville at my side, I know one thing:

I can't come out of this alive.

**DRACO'S POV:**

I don't know what I was thinking in the beginning, hooking up with that stupid Potter boy. It started out as frustration, a fistfight over his friends that turned into something else. I think I kissed him first. It certainly shut him up, made him stop hitting me, but then he was kissing back and I wasn't sure of anything except his mouth.

Harry Potter, the boy who gives good blowjobs.

It turned into a regular thing; I would find any excuse I needed to make to get away from the louts I called my sidekicks, and there was always a convenient closet. We would fumble in the darkness, his mouth easy on mine, his brilliant green eyes glinting in the faint light.

I think it was really his eyes that caught me, drew me in. I watched them in classes when no one was looking.

There came a point where I realized we weren't just casually snogging anymore, where I discovered that I actually cared about him. When it stopped being about the famous Harry Potter on his knees for me, or in my bed, and it became about his pleasure too. We stayed nights in the Astronomy Tower, or in this little place off a corridor that Harry called the Room of Requirement. I kept letting him think it was all about the need, all about us fucking. I couldn't have dealt if he knew how I felt.

My father would never have approved of me falling in love with him.

That doesn't matter now, of course. When my father informed me that Voldemort had plans for me, told me what I needed to do, I broke it off with Harry. I couldn't afford to have him find out. I told him it was over, told him the truth about part of it and lied through my teeth about the rest.

_"My father wouldn't approve."_

Everything was always about my father, Harry said. We screamed and fought, insults flying like daggers, each one cutting closer to home, until Harry was the one to spin on his heel and run away.

I stayed in the forest that night, alone. I couldn't believe I had just done that, but my family was counting on me.

Potter and Weasley seemed to grow closer in the aftermath of our fight. The summer came all too fast, and with it too many things I had to do for my family name. I dreamed of green eyes and his silky smooth mouth when I slept, and woke up sweaty and sated and angry.

Life went on, even in the midst of this silent fight, and I found myself caught up in my own side of it, too busy to notice much.

Once school had started again, I still caught glimpses of those brilliant green eyes during classes, but they were never directed at me. They were always focused on his friends, just like our earliest years had been. He looked so happy with the two of them, it hurt.

It cut at me, every time I caught him looking at Weasley like that, and it made me sick to see the silent glances that passed between them.

**RON'S POV:**

Malfoy was on our side in the end, seemed to have redeemed himself, along with Snape. Crabbe and Goyle, the cowards they were, obviously hadn't followed him to the light. His silver eyes flashed as he looked across at his father, and I had this feeling that things just weren't going to be the same between me and Harry anymore.

He looked at Malfoy as though he were a different person. I don't know if he was truly changed, those Slytherin qualities all too visible beneath his newly-formed "good guy" shield. But Harry kept looking at him differently, and they kept touching one another during the battles, if only on accident. It wasn't like the forest anymore, no more secrets to hide, no more tension.

Except, where did I stand? How would Harry treat me now that he and Draco were on the same side again?

I didn't want to be Just Ron again.

During the battle, so many were lost. I can still hear their names on the Wireless when Remembrance Day rolls around: William Weasley, Charles Weasley, Percy Weasley, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Ginevra Weasley... and my parents, sweet Molly and Arthur, never hurt a fly.

Not to mention Luna, Neville, Oliver, Seamus, and so many others that were both friends and family.

We won, in the end. The Dark Lord was defeated at the hands of the great Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley was shoved into shadow.

Because the one thing that I really wanted, that I really needed to be only mine and not another hand-me-down, had been taken from me.

The Boy Who Lived was no longer. He was The Boy Who Died Bravely Killing Voldemort (We Can Say His Name Now!). Or some similar load of crap, anyways. The one person I would have died for gave his own life for everyone else. It was the only way, he said.

We had done everything we could, people were dropping left and right, and he just turns, gives me this incredibly brilliant look that makes my heart melt, and says, "That's it. That's what we've been forgetting...."

Next thing I know, he's not at my side any more, he's grabbed Neville by the sleeve and raced off, headed directly for Voldemort himself. Before I can disengage and follow him, there's a blinding flash of light and I hear Harry cry out in agony, and the silence that follows leaves my ears ringing. A clear but distraught voice rises to fill the silence, _Avada Kedavra_, and another brilliant light goes off, leaving my vision spotty as I race forward.

The rest of the battle is a blur to me.

I saw Neville fall at the hands of a Death Eater, saw Harry's prone body laid there alongside Voldemort himself. Draco showed up mere moments after I did, and his face crumpled as he dropped to his knees alongside me, reaching out towards Harry. I heard words of disbelief, tearful apologies and confessions of love, and I'm not sure which one of us uttered which words, and then it was all just too much.

Hermione had to drag me off of Malfoy, keep me from strangling him then and there. How dare he be the one Harry had fallen in love with? How dare he click so well with the only person I had ever loved, _could_ ever love?

But the only word I could find to describe him, to scream at him, was 'traitor'.

And I was shaking so terribly it was difficult to stand, and Hermione held me as I collapsed into her and cried. She cried, too, her arms around me tightly, the only thing keeping me from falling into the depths of my own sadness.

And Draco came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.

I looked back at him with tear-filled vision, his own eyes carrying all the same sadness I had, and holding in them that spark of truth that told me he really was on our side.

"Everything's going to be okay," he said, the hand on my shoulder squeezing reassuringly.

_Yeah, right, _I thought bitterly. _You don't know anything. You never will know anything._

I'm positive now that part of me died along with Harry, probably my common sense, because I let Draco touch me, let him reassure me, even let him run his hand down my face, forgetting all those times that he had hurt me and called me names.

And then I kissed him, in the middle of the field, surrounded by so many bodies that had once carried a soul, now cold and dead and lifeless. A poet would say that he felt like bitterness and desperation and sadness and death. But to me, he felt like replacement.

Because nothing would feel like Harry felt.

Even that word, _replacement_, wasn't right. Nobody could ever replace Harry, for me. What he was to me, that's irreplaceable. All I can do is try to fill the gap that was left when he died.

Draco and I seem to be the only ones who remember him how he truly was, not as The Boy Who Saved Us. To the two of us, he was so much more, and as I spend time with Draco (and when did I stop thinking of him as Malfoy?) I come to realize this: that Draco and I are more alike than I thought.

**DRACO:**

Little did any of us realise, even Snape wasn't on our side. I overheard my mother pleading him into an Unbreakable, thinking I was too cowardly to manage on my own.

I was. I didn't, couldn't do it. Snape did.

After that, everything went to hell.

The war finally came, feeling almost staged. Snape wasn't on Voldemort's side anymore (if he had ever been,) and the day before the final fight I turned to him for help getting out.

Everyone looked at me strangely, untrustingly, as I stood at Snape's side. I had found a new hatred for my father, and as I scanned the opposing line of wizards he was the one who caught and held my attention. My mother was nowhere to be seen in this fight. She had already lost.

When I failed, they had sentenced me to die as well. My mother tried to protect me, and Lucius (I refuse to acknowledge him as my father anymore) was ordered to kill her too. I escaped while he was gleefully torturing the woman he claimed to love, and I hid for what seemed like forever until Snape became safe to run to.

I made sure my hands were the ones his blood spilled over, my face the last thing he saw. I wasn't a coward any longer. Even if he did manage to croak out the word "traitor" as he died, I felt like I was finally on the right side. Harry's eyes, across the field, were the ones that assured me I had made the right choice.

We fought close to one another, so close I could reach out and touch him, and sometimes I did. Just to reassure myself that he was still there, that everything was right. Every touch was filled with a searing heat, and we were tearing a path through Voldemort's supporters together, and everything was fine again.

And then, suddenly, he wasn't there anymore. Weasley and the mudblood had been fighting alongside us as well, and they were still there, but I couldn't see Harry anymore.

By the time I spotted him it was too late, he was headed straight for Voldemort himself, with another Gryffindor in tow, and there was nothing I could do but watch as Voldemort raised his wand.

A flash of light blinded me, I could hear the words I was dreading in my head even over the sound of the battle, and all I could do was cry out as I ran blindly towards them in the ringing silence that followed. Everyone there knew; everyone had seen him die.

The words rang out again, aloud, in that silence, but with a different voice, younger and less sure. The Gryffindor Harry had been towing along, perhaps. It didn't matter. I didn't care.

Weasley got there first, everyone else standing for a moment in stunned silence before the battle went on around us. More people died, and this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Voldemort was dead, it was supposed to be over. But a few devout Death Eaters fought on, and died for the cause, and then everything was finally over.

Except that Weasley had taken offense to my showing up at Harry's side, tried to kill me, called me a traitor, and then kissed me.

**RON'S POV:**

So maybe we took a night for ourselves and we got falling-down drunk, him trying to make his way to the loo while bouncing like a pinball from wall to wall. There was no harm in taking a break from life, from death, from mourning the one person who could fill this empty void. We tried to drink away our sorrows. It just lead to us kissing again, more heatedly this time, and then my clumsy fingers trying to undo the buttons on his shirt.

His clothes were always much better than mine. His were always newer, more expensive, silky. They slipped like a liquid off his pale body, and when he tried to do mine in return, he kept growling in frustration at how tightly they fit on me.

We stumbled into bed that night, all the time me picturing Harry beneath me in my head. The sheets tangled around his ankles as we fought for dominance, trying so hard to get the other to submit, and I did win eventually.

Afterwards, I felt dirty. Wrong. Being with Harry had felt so very right to me, so perfect, that being with anybody else now would feel icky. I could tell that he wasn't happy either, not quite, that empty look that I know is a reflection of my own pains.

But we seemed to find solace in each other. Hermione didn't say anything, just looked at me as if I were an alien to her, and I wished so badly that she'd say something to me. Anything.

I needed reaction.

**DRACO:**

Everything was wrong from the start.

Weasley, he had no idea what he was doing. Harry had been so much better, even the first time. He knew what he wanted, and he took it without asking me if it was okay, and I did the same. He went so willingly to his knees for me--

Weasley was nothing like that. He was always uncertain even when he was pushing and fighting me for top. I gave in, let him win just to end the awkward fumbles in the dark. To move on to what I really needed.

Harry had been graceful. Harry had been careless, to a point. He kept our relationship from his friends to avoid confrontation, but he didn't particularly bother to hide it from anyone else.

Weasley kept it hidden from everyone who hadn't seen it happening. That Granger girl, she knew because she was there when it started. She didn't even look at me with the same hatred they all used to carry for me. There was a sad look, pitying, and then she would look away again because seeing me next to her friend was unbearable. At least, I suppose that's why. She didn't speak to either of us anymore, not even to throw insults. She didn't seem to speak much to anyone, after the war.

Weasley didn't seem to understand that, he was always whining on about the fact that she hated him now and wasn't ever going to speak to him again. He didn't seem to see that she was hurting just as much as we were, and just didn't want to talk.

Sometimes, later, she and I would sit back to back on a bench against the window in the library, in silence. Even if she couldn't bear to look at me, we had an unspoken agreement, a sort of truce; and when Ron wasn't around, Granger would give me a tiny smile of pity and understanding. It made me cringe inside. Did I really need her pity? A mudblood, pitying me. How far had I fallen?

How far did I have left to go?

Slowly, everything went back to something resembling normal. I had no real family left; my mother was dead before the final battle, my father died at my own hands, and Bellatrix was one of the last Death Eaters hanging on, killed to end the war. Snape was the only thing even resembling family left to me.

Weasley had no family at all, if you count that the Granger girl wasn't really there for anyone anymore.

We ended up becoming each others' family, slowly. We would sit up at night, me with my clove cigarettes, and Weasley with his butterbeer, and we would talk about Harry. The habits of his we had noticed, the little things that we remembered best. The way he would close his eyes only when he was oh-so-right-_there_ close.... We would stay up talking, or just sitting in companionable silence until the sunlight broke over the horizon.

**RON:**

I don't think that Draco Malfoy ever saw me as anything more than a quick fuck.

Yes, we'd sit up late and talk about Harry, me trying to hide all the anger I had towards their affairs, but it wasn't deep enough to count as a real relationship. And I felt so guilty and so sick whenever we snuck off to shag, Hermione watching us as we left.

I tried so hard to hide it, because it was _wrong, _and nobody else needed to know that I was covered in filth.

I'm sorry, did I say covered? I meant _candy-coated. _

It was hard to look into those gray eyes and try to imagine bright green ones staring back at me. It was hard to be with someone I had hated so much in all my years of school, despised, loathed, and then go off and have sex with him.

Malfoy was often very blunt with me about what he wanted. He'd look at me when I tried to undo his trousers and he'd say, "I need you to go down on me."

I could never be that blunt. Ever.

Then there was the night when I just couldn't really handle the pressure anymore.

"I don't know what we're doing," I told him, trying to be perfectly honest with him when I had been lying to myself so thoroughly.

"It's called fucking, Weasley," he replied sharply. "Now keep going."

"No," I said. "I mean, overall, I have no idea what we're doing. We hate one another... don't we?"

He scoffed at me, but never replied to my question.

I'm not sure I want to know the answer.

**DRACO:**

_"We hate each other..."_

I never hated them. Any of them. Harry, Harry I wanted from the beginning, and not only because it would be strategic for him to have been on 'our' side of the war (according to my father, of course). When he allied himself with Weasley and Granger instead, shutting me down when I offered him friendship...I couldn't handle it. I wanted him, I had wanted him from the moment I first saw him.

I was raised with a contempt for people I was superior to. Contempt for people like the Weasleys, or people like Granger. People that Lucius and my surroundings taught me were beneath my level. There wasn't any _hatred_ there, and it honestly startled me to know that Ron thought there was.

I couldn't find the words to answer his question. Did I tell him I never hated any of them? Did I tell him "yes, I hate you, that's why I let you fuck me"?

I stayed silent instead, buried my face in his neck and picked up where we had left off, trying to distract myself from my own thoughts.

It was easier to avoid him, to avoid the situation after those simple words, than to face the question and the hatred in his eyes every single time. I spent more time with Granger than Weasley. More and more time alone with my thoughts, until I swore the ache alone would kill me. Had Harry felt the same way Weasley did? Did he honestly believe I hated them all? I would never know.

**RON:**

I could see Draco--Malfoy, I reminded myself--shutting down bit by bit from a distance.

It was so hard living with the lies I told myself. I loved them so much, could drown in them: _I love Draco Malfoy _or _Harry really loved me like I love him_. They were all so perfect for the situation I was in, four walls of denial closing in on me so tight that I hardly had room to breathe.

No, I didn't love Malfoy. I don't think I ever could, not after how Harry had fallen for him so easily. And no, Harry didn't really love me like I love him even still. He was everything to me, my best friend, my chosen brother, and the only person I could ever love.

But these lies that I fed directly into my brain echoed so beautifully as his pale legs hooked mine, as he gripped my bony shoulders for support as he came, and I'd whisper in his ear, _"I love you, Draco. I love you..."_

None of it was true.

And then there was that evening in the Astronomy Tower (I'd suggested it, but Draco was very hesitant for some reason) when he reached up to scratch and I saw the fresh cuts all up his arms, shallow but desperate, and I grabbed it like I had gripped Harry's own wrist after his detention. The thought made my heart ache with memory.

"Where did these come from?" I asked him, and he tried to jerk away from me. I held tighter, insistent. "Draco, where did you get these?"

His response was colder, more cruel than I had heard in a long time. "Fuck you, Weasley. Don't try to pretend like you care all of a sudden." His face twisted into a familiar sneer as he wrenched his arm out of my grasp. The small hiss of pain that fell from his lips as he did so didn't escape me, but the look on his face said he enjoyed the pain, more than anything. It made me think of how he used to be, before the War.

Before Harry had changed him so much, and yet so little. It made me think about how much Harry must have influenced him while they were together, and how much he obviously hadn't, and that led me to thinking about how much Harry had changed me as well. Which only served to make my heart ache again.

Draco turned to leave me then, his face cruel and pale from being discovered. God, I hated myself so much at that moment, watching his robes drag along behind him like I'd watched Harry so many months ago.

Had it really been months already?

It made me slightly sick to take a moment and think about what was going on. I used to have such a nice life, getting into trouble with my best friend. I remembered my very conflicted fourth year at Hogwarts, when I was so overcome with jealousy I could spit green. When I finally apologized--attempted to, anyway, if he hadn't stopped me--the Fates decided it was best to teach Harry a lesson. I was chosen as his Treasure, his most prized possession, and if I was smart, I would've fallen in love right then.

I wonder what would be Harry's Treasure now...

I'm not sure when I fell in love with him, exactly. Maybe I was always in love and didn't realize it. I do know that I loved him though, more than anything else in the entire world, and if I could've given my life to save his, I would.

Of course, it was too late now. Now it was just me and Draco, mixing the sleek and expensive with the poor and average. I wasn't sure what we were doing while we fucked one another through the floor; possibly taking out our sorrows on each other, or trying to find distraction from the outside world. After all, it was so cold out there compared to the sharing of overheated skin.

Every time we did, I imagined dark hair and bright green eyes clenching shut as he came.

And now the sex wasn't enough of a distraction. Now he needed something else to take his mind off emotional pain, needed to make the balance between that and physical destruction. Those marks up his arms, not as deep as my own but deep enough to matter.

I don't have many scars. Harry and Draco have more physical scars than I'll ever have, especially after the War. But my scars... my scars are so much worse than he'll ever know.

Because my scars are the ones you don't see.

**DRACO:**

I listened every time we met to the lies spilling forth from those lips until I couldn't stand it anymore. The loneliness I felt, the hatred in his heart, the heartbreak of my own, all of it came down one night in a bout of rage alone with a bottle of butterbeer. The bottle shattered against the wall, and as glass went flying everywhere I had a brilliant moment of clarity.

Staring at my bare feet, the brilliant crimson oozing from a shallow nick, I took a piece of the glass and ran it across my arm hesitantly. Watching the blood blossom to the surface and flow down my arm was soothing, and I brought my arm up to my lips to lick away the evidence, the taste of copper and iron filling my mouth.

It became a habit. The sight of blood was soothing to me, the pain a welcome respite from the emotional void I felt inside. I had always worn long sleeves, it wasn't any different now. The cool silk of my shirt sleeves felt good against the healing lines along my arms, smooth and comforting, reminding me the marks were there.

I slowly stopped caring who saw them; I would roll up my sleeves to make a potion and listen to my classmates muttering amongst themselves. Those Slytherins remaining kept clear of me, my temper flaring up more and more often as the lies became harder and harder to bear. Finally one night when Weasley had dragged me out for another tryst in the tower, I couldn't handle it anymore. When he grabbed my arm and demanded to know why I was cutting, I snapped.

_Why does it matter to you?_ I thought. _You're the one lying to us both. You are where I got these marks. You and your fucking lies, and that fucking Harry Potter and his fucking heroic __**death**__._

But even angry and bitter I couldn't make those words come out of my mouth. I still hoped Ron hadn't noticed the word spelled out in scars, healing and new, one at a time up my arm. T-R-A-I-T-O and the last letter left unfinished, among the other lines made by guilt and fear and..._**hatred**_**.** _Finally, finally I think I know what you meant by that word._

When I ran, the only place I could think to hide from him and his accusing hateful eyes was the library. Curled up on the seat by the window, the moonlight making the skin on my arm look even more pale than usual, it was all I could do not to break down into tears. So again, the knife came out of my pocket, and I wasn't stupid enough to use something that wasn't sanitary, so my lighter followed it out.

I seared the blade with the lighter, watching its shine darken with sooty residue, and then I wiped it off on my robes (which probably defeats the point but it doesn't matter) before I drew the sharp blade along my arm. The cuts are shallower with the knife, they don't bleed as fast or as long as the glass did, but I watched the blood well up slowly and start to trickle down the pale flesh, nearly black in the moonlight. I finished that last letter, air hissing through my teeth at the pain, letting blood take the place of tears I was too proud to shed.

_My fault. Your fault. I don't know anymore.... Maybe it's _our_ fault he's dead; maybe we're both to blame. If I hadn't chosen my father over him. If you hadn't taken him away from me with your hatred._

_Or maybe there's nobody to blame except Harry himself._ But I didn't want to think about that possibility, because I didn't want to have to blame him. I stared at the word scrawled down my arm in pain. The last word of my father, the first word of my relationship with Weasley. The end of one thing and the beginning of another. I was a traitor to both sides.

The sun was coming up over the horizon when I felt warm arms fold over my shoulders and a body settle onto the seat behind me. Brown hair tickling my face as her chin settles against my shoulder; she's been more comfort than anyone, in her silent acceptance of me. A slender hand traced the lines along my arm softly; her roughened fingertips, tugging at the edges of the cuts, made me hiss slightly, but it didn't stop her. She rested her whole hand along my arm, covering the marks.

"It doesn't have to be like this." The first time I had actually heard her speak since Harry died, and her voice was soft in my ear.

"I don't know what to do," I confided just as softly. "He hates me. I tried, for a while, to have something more than this. But he threw it all back in my face. He doesn't love me, I can see it in his eyes when he says it." _I can see him look right through me, and I know who he's looking at._ But I didn't add that. She knew anyways, I think.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her wand, pressing the tip of it against first one arm, then the other. I could see her move her lips, and the cuts healed over smoothly as I watched, the scars fading into pale white lines, barely visible against my skin.

Her eyes met mine for the first time that year, and then she stood up. "Classes will be starting soon." She left me with that. I glanced down at my arms, where even the word TRAITOR was indistinguishable from the mess of faint lines, and turned to the window to watch the rest of the sunrise alone. I had a feeling Granger could have erased all traces of those scars if she wanted, and had chosen not to, to remind me.

The year was almost over, and I really hadn't any idea what I was going to do once school was out. I had always assumed my father would provide me with a job, or I would get killed in the War, or something. But despite that, I had escaped barely hanging on to my life once, I wasn't about to bring it to an end over something this trivial. Finally, exhausted, I fell asleep curled against the window, my sleeves rolled up to the elbow still.

**RON:**

I didn't know what to tell him. I had been through my own cutting phase, but that was a long time ago, when I first realized that I was head-over-heels in love with my best male friend. The brains took care of those, covered up all traces of self-destruction I had attempted but was too cowardly to commit.

And now my... what was he to me? A lover? Certainly not a friend nor an enemy of mine. We were too close to be considered enemies and too far apart to be considered my friend of any sort.

But lovers were supposed to _love_ one another. I wondered absently if he knew the promises I told him were all lies. Probably. The Malfoys, while most of them sadistic bastards, weren't stupid.

Or maybe that was it. Maybe he thought I was stupid for caring.

Was I stupid for caring that he felt suicidal? I thought about what life would be like without Draco Malfoy.

He didn't love me, so what did it matter?

What was love, really? I had loved Harry, God, more than anything. He was all I needed... and then he decided to go off and throw himself in the midst of danger with his stupid heroic attitude and leave me alone.

Alone with Draco.

Maybe it was Draco that kept me from spiraling into my own insanities. I'm not sure now why I don't just give in and let the madness take me over. How can he not see? How can he think his own pains are so much worse than mine? He hadn't loved Harry the way I had. He hadn't made the first move to ruin both of our lives. He's not the one responsible for those marks carved into his skin...

Oh, God. It was all my fault, wasn't it? From the very beginning. From the second I threw that Cloak over my shoulders to sneak out of the castle.

There was no possible way to repair the damages I'd done.

But I could help Draco. Yes, I could help keep my support upright and healthy. I could try and save Draco when it's all too late to save myself.

That's all that was left to do.

**DRACO:**

I woke up to the whispered commotion of a group of students who were staring at me, and the first thing I did was turn my head and glare at them. Full force. First years, and Hufflepuffs, they turned and scattered like leaves in the wind, and I swung my legs down, stretching out the knot in my back from the awkward position.

Hurriedly vacating the bench seat before a tattling youth could find a teacher, I made my way back to the common room, and into my room. I was still a Prefect, after all, with all the benefits that entailed. I cast a locking charm on the door as I closed it, before collapsing onto the floor against it and going over the last night's events in my head.

I couldn't even think straight, I was numb all the way to the core. I turned my arms over, looking at the faint marks all along them before letting my head fall back against the heavy wooden door. I had to find a way to fix this somehow, and I didn't have even the faintest idea of how to start.

Pushing myself to my feet, I made my way to the shower, turned it on as hot as I could stand, and stripped out of my filthy clothes, leaving them on the floor for a house-elf to take care of. I didn't even care if they came back at all, by that point. I wouldn't wear them again anyways. The cuffs were stained, and whether or not I could see it when it came back from being cleaned, I would know the blood had been there.

I climbed into the scalding water and let it run over me, kicking the plug from the side of the bath and watching it settle neatly into the drain. The bath started to fill with water, and I let myself slide down into the tub, staring at the water pouring down, mesmerized by the sound. Letting my thoughts drift, I fell into almost a meditative state, sitting there in the water.

I didn't love Ron Weasley.

I had been in love with Harry Potter, but he was dead. Hell, I still loved him.

I could maybe grow to love Weasley in time, but I couldn't let him keep lying to me. I couldn't give up on life. But maybe I could give up on Ron, after all. Maybe it was time I figured out what I was going to do for myself. My life had always been dictated by my parents, by my teachers, by Voldemort himself. By my peers, enemies or not. Everyone else had always had some sort of say in my life.

It was my turn.

**RON:**

I couldn't stay in the Tower alone; that would pointless. But I did need to be alone, even if just for a few moments. So I left the Tower after Draco had stormed away from me and shambled off to the Quidditch Pitch, where I knew nobody would look for me.

I guess the Pitch had become a place of comfort. The memories of Harry and I flying together, laughing, the wind tugging at his dark hair. Sometimes we'd fly in the rain just for fun, and once I even had the courage to wipe the droplets off his glasses for him.

Of course, that was where my Gryffindor courage ended.

I hate the rain now. I hate the feeling of the coldness pounding against my skin, hate the way the shadows melt together beneath the dark, pregnant clouds... I just keep seeing that image burned into my mind, their mouths pressed together and the sounds of their breathing fill my ears. I can't keep being jealous, of course... I had my chance with him, had my time with him, as brief as it was. It wasn't fair, to have something I'd always wanted and have it taken away so easily.

I'd wanted Harry for so long. Then again, everybody wanted him; he was the Boy Who Lived or the Chosen One or whatever the hell they were calling him then. He was brave and strong and rebellious and everything about him said "Hero".

I was able to see past the Hero part of him, though, and see just a scared teenage boy who didn't know what the hell to do.

I think he always knew what he wanted, though, from the start.

And he never wanted me.

I can still remember the softness of his hair as I ran my hands through it, the sound of his short gasps as he came, the warm breath against my ear as he'd whisper, "I need you, Ron. I need you..."

Never once did he mention love, though.

I had thought once that I was in love with Hermione. I mean, it was logical enough: she was pretty and perfect and brilliant, had the beauty to match the brains. I realize now that I only wanted to love her... I never actually did.

When it came to Harry, nothing was logical. And I knew in my heart that I wasn't allowed to have that, as much as I wanted it.

I'm not allowed to want things, especially "things" being my best male friend.

Hermione knew I was in love with Harry. She saw right through my denial and avoidance, saw my weak and vulnerable loyalty to Harry Potter. I really would've done anything for him, anything at all, if he had the bravery to just ask. Because I loved him that much--I _love _him that much. If it were at all possible, I would happily die to bring him back.

But that's not possible, is it?

And I'm not allowed to want it.

**DRACO:**

Despite everything Granger had done for me, it wasn't enough to break the habit I had fallen into, and I watched blood swirl down the drain of the tub as I took a razor to my skin again, feeling the sharp bite of metal against flesh. Not deep enough to matter, just deep enough to bleed. Deep enough to feel, through the numbness muffling my thoughts and my heart.

Anything was better than that numbness.

The pain brought everything back in sharp clarity, brought me back from the haze that had been insulating me all day with a gasp. I had come to enjoy the pain, and after everything else it seemed only appropriate that the sensation of the metal against my skin would make me hard, make me want, make me need.

As usual, I didn't give in to it. I turned off the shower, watching the last of the crimson-tainted water swirl away down the drain, and wrapped myself in my Hogwarts-provided green towel. The anger surging inside of me was enough to keep the haze at bay, and let me think clearly.

I had to find Weasley. I pulled on the first shirt I found, an old green silk, the edges of the cuffs slightly tattered, and a pair of black jeans, and my school robes on over the top of it. A seventh-year prefect, ditching class. Some role model I was.

I wasn't sure where to find him at this time of day, wasn't even sure if he would go to his classes. I certainly couldn't interrupt if that's where he had gone, so instead I dug up a couple of my books and pretended to read them until I couldn't even see the words on the page anymore in the dungeon.

I decided that it would be prudent to take my reading (or my not-reading, as the case may be) to someplace better lit, like the library, and that's where Weasley finally found me.

**RON:**

The next morning hit me sharply on the head. Or rather, in the eyes, and I tried to blink back the tears as the sun beamed down at me.

I had a crick in my neck from sleeping against the goal post. I didn't mind, though... In fact, I welcomed it, as it was a reminder that the real world hurts sometimes.

After walking back to the castle, I made my way straight to class. Hermione, if she were talking to me, would have said she was proud of me, going to classes when I obviously didn't want to. In truth, I did want to. I wanted to be able to sit back and listen for once instead of wallowing in my own despairs and feeling sorry for myself.

We had Charms class with the Slytherins that day, and I looked around me for a glimpse of platinum blond but saw no such thing. Why wasn't Malfoy in class today? A ditching prefect is never a good sign.

So I raised my hand and told Flitwick I was ill so that I could be excused from lecture. I had to find Malfoy, had to talk to him. I needed someone to talk to, needed to listen to someone.

It didn't take long to find him. It's funny, people think they can escape me by hiding in the library. What they don't know about me is that what I may lack in book smarts, I make up for with strategic skills.

He was sitting at one of the tables with his face cupped in one hand, elbow leaning on the table, and his grey eyes were staring fixedly on one spot of the page. I approached slowly, not wanting to startle him, until I was beside him. He looked up once, just to acknowledge my presence, and then back down at the book.

"Hey," I said as a short greeting that would lead us nowhere.

"Hey," he replied, just as shortly, but with more hints of sadness.

Willing to take the risk, I walked around and sat opposite him. With greater risk, I leaned over and shut the book.

"Why don't you tell me what's wrong?"

**DRACO:**

I wasn't sure I wanted to talk, when he showed up. I knew that _something_ needed to be said, and I didn't know what until he closed my book and asked me a question. The all-important question. Well, it was really two questions wrapped up together that both needed answering.

"Why don't you tell me what's wrong?"

_Because I don't know it myself._

I looked up, meeting blue eyes over the book I wasn't reading to begin with. For once, I thought honesty might actually be better than the lies we'd learned to live with.

"Because I don't even know where to begin. The only thing that I can come up with...." I looked at the students throwing curious glances at us from down the table, and stood, gathering my books and wearily making my way around the table. "Let's talk somewhere else."

No rest for the wicked, they said, and it certainly felt like I hadn't had any as I made my way across the grounds to the Quidditch pitch, that being the only place I could think of that was even slightly neutral where we weren't likely to be interrupted. There were a few people practising with new brooms, and everything felt surreal and ordinary.

"The only thing that I can come up with," I repeated, breaking the sullen silence that had accompanied our trek outside, "is that Harry.... Harry is dead. That's everything and nothing of what's wrong." I could hear the rich brat I used to be in the way I whined, and it only served to make me more annoyed. "He isn't here to make us hold hands and be friends. He isn't here to be a buffer between us, but the fact that he isn't here is the only reason you and I ever dared to touch worlds. And I'm done, I'm sick of feeling sorry for myself. I'm sick of feeling sorry for you."

The pain in his face when I said those words, the way he paled when I reminded him that yes, Harry Potter was dead, never coming back...it reminded me of the scars on my arms. So pale, a marker of the pain; a replacement for the numbness. Maybe this was what he had really been seeking, was to use me as the knife.

To allow me to reopen his emotional wounds, time and time again, so he didn't feel this numbness. Using me, like I was using him. To feel something, anything.

"I'm sick of it. We're done. You can stop with the bloody fucking LIES you've been trying so hard to tell. Time for some honesty, Weasley." I felt numb again, except for where I could feel my fingernails digging into my palms, eight perfect little crescents of pain.

I wouldn't run away. I had been running ever since I took a stand against Harry, ever since I gave up my whole world for a stupid pat on the head.

So I would stand, and fight, and it didn't matter who got hurt here. We were both hurting too much already.

I told him everything. Everything I had never said, every reason he had asked me for that I had avoided, and when I yanked up my sleeve to show him the marks up my arm, he cringed without even looking.

Without even seeing the damage that wasn't there anymore, the damage his friend (not mine, I reminded myself, never _my_ friend) had healed out of some unknown emotion of her own. The faint mess of lines along my forearm, too faint to even discern the word that had branded my heart for life. The single word that I could still feel carved into my skin.

_"I never told Harry I loved him. I never had the chance."_

The look on his face was disgusted, like I was something filthy that had defiled those words, and I couldn't agree more right at that moment.

But what I said next made it all the worse, and I was just as startled as he was as the words spilled from my mouth angrily.

For the first, and the last, time, I told him that I had fallen in love with Ron Weasley.

**RON:**

God, I hated him so much the moment he told me he loved me.

It had been so long since anybody--family, friends, lovers--had ever said those words to me.

_"I fell in love with you, Weasley."_

How could I respond to that?

So I stood there on the grass with my mouth hanging open like a drowning fish. He wanted the truth from me, I could see it in his eyes. He knew about all my lies, my dirty, filthy lies that I had never shared with anyone before. If he wanted the truth, then I would give it to him, because I believed in my heart that he could handle it, even if I couldn't.

"But I'm not," I said, my voice threatening to break with every syllable. "You're right, Harry's not here... he's never coming back to me, never coming back to _us, _the only two people who ever saw him for what he really was. I was using you, and I'm sorry."

A look of acknowledgment, and that was all.

"I'm so sorry, Draco..."

He closed his eyes and nodded slowly, not bothering with words that would only make everything so much worse.

I kissed him again, just once more to remind myself that life did hurt, that it was possible to feel pain in the midst of all this grief and sorrow; a clumsy mashing of lips against my own, and we pressed hard enough to bruise just because we were both hurting too much to notice.

I pulled away then, turning back to the castle, and it was over. The lies, the heartbreak, the pain, the lack of feeling--it was all over between us.

And I left him alone with a rolled-up sleeve, a longing, and a broken habit.

Because it was finally over.


End file.
